


If God Could See

by Sent2TheBeast



Category: The Old Guard (Comics), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Declarations Of Love, First Kiss, First Love, Fluff, Heart-to-Heart, Kissing in the Rain, Little bit of angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Poetic, Rain, Religious Guilt, Sappy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:22:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26280340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sent2TheBeast/pseuds/Sent2TheBeast
Summary: It breaks Yusuf’s heart, to see how quickly shame can reduce Nicolo to something so small. Yusuf joins him on the stair, he says nothing just lets the white noise of the rain across the rooftops cut the silence. After years of travelling with one another, Yusuf knows to give Nicolo time, and so they sit together and Yusuf finds a peace in the familiarity of the action.“The rain is beautiful,” Nicolo finally speaks, and there is a weight to his words that captures Yusuf’s breath. Nicolo hopes that Yusuf understands what he means. You are beautiful.“I do not care about the rain,” Yusuf replies gently, and turns to face Nicolo “Are you okay?” Nicolo chuckles, a dark, simple thing that tells Yusuf everything he needs to know. “Nicolo,” Yusuf says his name low and quiet as if it were an invitation or a wish. “What are you thinking?”_____The tale of two immortal soldiers who finally share their feelings, and maybe something more.
Relationships: Joe x Nicky - Relationship, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Nicolo di Genova x Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Yusuf x nicolo
Comments: 27
Kudos: 332





	If God Could See

The rain starts slowly, a drizzle on the roof that is lost to idle chit chat and stolen glances. It is Yusuf who notices the downpour, as the gentle patter turns to drumming, the sky opening up in a way it has not done in months. 

“Do you hear that?” Yusuf asks, his face alight with such unbridled excitement that Nicolo cannot help but smile. “It’s raining, Nicolo!” he is out the door without another word, arms reaching toward the sky. Nicolo leans against the doorway, watches Yusuf dance through the puddles that spread across the ground. 

“Are you having fun?” Nicolo asks, his voice light as air. 

“I am,” Yusuf replies, beaming “Are you just going to stand there, watching?” 

“I am perfectly content where I am,” Nicolo smirks “I’m enjoying the view,” 

“Nicolo, really?” Yusuf frowns, and Nicolo laughs at the image “Come join me.”

“I-,”

“Please?” Yusuf’s eyes are teasing, pleading as he gravitates toward Nicolo and Nicolo cannot help but be drawn to him in kind. 

The rain is cold and Nicolo can feel the goosebumps taking shape along his arms, tucks them across his chest. He does his best to pretend like standing here next to Yusuf is a chore, like he is anything but thrilled to be beckoned to his side. “Are you happy now?” 

“Delighted,” Yusuf is beaming, and Nicolo decides he may like the rain much more than he once did. Nicolo spends most of his time standing in one place, wiping water from his brow, and following Yusuf’s lead. He splashes in the puddles, sends droplets flying out in all directions. He doesn’t quite understand the appeal of Yusuf’s current pastime, but is content to participate in Yusuf’s joy. Nicolo takes a step and loses his footing in the mud, tumbles forward and catches himself on Yusuf’s shoulder. 

Yusuf’s skin burns at the touch, his heart beats faster. The rain still falls but the air is thick around them, intoxicating. Nicolo’s fingers curl against the fabric of Yusuf’s shirt, for the first time in a long time, Nicolo’s mind goes still, and he can focus on nothing but how soft Yusuf’s lips look. Caught up in the moment, Nicolo leans forward, his heart catching in his throat when Yusuf follows suit. There is a moment where everything seems to click into place, but just before years of wanton yearning can be obliterated by a kiss Nicolo tears himself away, presses a hand to his trembling lip, and blinks tears from his eyes. 

“Nicolo?” Yusuf’s voice is small and tempered as he places a hand on Nicolo’s elbow. Nicolo recoils at the touch, and hates himself for it. 

“I’m sorry,” the apology is nearly drowned out in the rain, Nicolo speaks to the street, too scared to face Yusuf, to look him in the eyes. “I do not know what came over me, I shouldn’t have,” In an instant the rain has turned from something joyful into something mocking. Every movement Nicolo makes is deliberate and controlled as he returns to the stoop, rests his arms across his knees, stares at the wet earth beneath his feet. 

It breaks Yusuf’s heart, to see how quickly shame can reduce Nicolo to something so small. Yusuf joins him on the stair, he says nothing just lets the white noise of the rain across the rooftops cut the silence. After years of travelling with one another, Yusuf knows to give Nicolo time, and so they sit together and Yusuf finds a peace in the familiarity of the action. 

“The rain is beautiful,” Nicolo finally speaks, and there is a weight to his words that captures Yusuf’s breath. Nicolo hopes that Yusuf understands what he means.  _ You are beautiful _ . 

“I do not care about the rain,” Yusuf replies gently, and turns to face Nicolo “Are you okay?” Nicolo chuckles, a dark, simple thing that tells Yusuf everything he needs to know. “Nicolo,” Yusuf says his name low and quiet as if it were an invitation or a wish. “What are you thinking?”

“You don’t want to know,” 

“I do. Talk to me, please,” 

Yusuf watches Nicolo search the sky for the right words, before he sighs and says “I am thinking that I cannot decide whether you are a gift from God or a punishment,” It is the first time in the conversation Nicolo has found the bravery to look at Yusuf, and though he tries to hide it, Yusuf sees the fear behind Nicolo’s eyes. 

“A punishment?” Yusuf tries to temper the offense in his voice. 

“Yes,” there is such certainty in Nicolo’s response it obliterates any anger Yusuf feels. “You are like the apple in the Garden of Eden, brilliant and tantalizing.” Nicolo sucks in a breath, eyes tracing the lines of Yusuf’s body. Yusuf shifts, uncomfortable, tries to hide the blush that rushes to his cheeks. He feels seen, feels exposed, Nicolo’s gaze piercing through to the very confines of his soul. “I want nothing more than to pluck you from the branches, to taste you on my tongue.” Yusuf feels his heart beat faster, hungry for Nicolo’s eyes when he finally looks away “But how can I be sure God will love me after I have taken that first bite? The Bible says ‘Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is an abomination.’”

Yusuf frowns, realizing the gravity of Nicolo’s fears and the only thing he can think to ask is, “Do you want to lie with women?” 

“No,” Nicolo says, relieved he can finally say it out loud.

“Do you want to lie with me?”

Nicolo tastes the panic rising up in his throat when Yusuf asks the question. Nicolo cannot bring himself to meet Yusuf’s gaze, cannot make himself form the word. So instead, he nods. 

Hope erupts inside Yusuf’s chest with a power he cannot quite fathom, he cannot contain the smile that spreads across his face “Then you do not sin,” 

“What?”

“If you would never lie with women, then you would not lie with me as you would with womankind, and it would not be a sin,” 

“That’s not what it means,” Nicolo’s expression is pained and desperate, as if he cannot allow himself to believe such things, no matter how much he wants Yusuf’s words to be true.

“Why not?”

“I-” and despite all his training, the sermons he’s written, the pages he’s studied, Nicolo is not quite certain he has an answer. 

“The Bible is a book, Nicolo, it is just words, open for interpretation like the Quran, the Torah.” Yusuf says, placing a hand on Nicolo’s forearm, delighted when Nicolo unconsciously starts tracing lines across his skin. “There are worse sins than love,” 

Nicolo’s fingers freeze, Yusuf watches the darkness cloud across Nicolo’s brow, and knows he has made a mistake.

“Yes.” Nicolo’s voice is as serious as the grave.”‘Thou shalt not murder’, it’s one of the Ten Commandments. The pinnacles of Christianity, and I have broken it too many times to count,” Nicolo pulls his arm away from Yusuf, presses it into the ground trying to steady himself against the onslaught of shame that rushes in around him. “I am a weak man, Yusuf. A coward, who let myself be talked into taking lives as long as I was rooting out evil. I brought hatred and death to so many people in the name of God, people whose faith I did not know or understand. My hands overflow with the innocent blood I have spilled. There is no prayer in my book, no ritual in my faith that can absolve me of that stain. Which is why you must be my punishment.” 

Yusuf has never seen such self-loathing on Nicolo’s face, such disgust or fury. Every fibre of Yusuf’s being screams for him to reach out, to pull Nicolo close to promise him everything will be okay. But he knows that it is Nicolo who must make the next move. “To want you, the way I do,” Nicolo continues, his voice wavering “to long for your eyes to meet mine, to ache for your touch and your attention...to know you are just within my grasp and yet I cannot have you, that is my penance.”

“Nicolo,” Yusuf breathes, and his eyes glisten with tears. 

“And yet,” Nicolo swallows and stares straight at Yusuf with an intensity that steals his breath away “I cannot help but think that if God could see the way your eyes shine in sunlight, the halo that forms atop your curls. If God  _ knew _ how enchanting your hands were when you draw, the beauty of your spine when you are bowed in prayer. If He could see it, see you, the way that I do, then he would not consider my desires to be sinful.” Nicolo takes Yusuf’s hands in his without realizing what he’s doing and smiles, a small thing fighting to break free “You have met me with such patience, treated me with a kindness I did not deserve, you have forgiven parts of me that I’m too scared to face. You’re my punishment, Yusuf, because you are a gift, one that I am not worthy of. 

For the first time in his life, Yusuf does not know what to say, so taken by surprise at Nicolo words. In all the years they had spent with one another, Yusuf had never known Nicolo to be eloquent, he was curious and charming, but he spoke much more in actions than in words. “And you say you’re not a poet,” 

“I am not,” Nicolo muses “but you turn me into one,” 

“You’ve forgotten something important,” 

“What?”

“You haven’t asked me what I think,” Yusuf does not accuse or blame, he states it simply because he knows what Nicolo will ask him next. 

“What do you think?”

“You have always been a gift,” 

Nicolo laughs, remembering the day they met, pondering the years that led them to this moment. “That’s not true,” 

“You were a different type of gift at the beginning,” Yusuf admits with a chuckle “but a gift nevertheless. Nicolo di Genova, the unkillable invader, how many ways did I imagine to torture you? How many deaths did I envision for you those first few years? One for every person I had lost in the Crusades. I saw you in my dreams and tied you there in my mind as the epitome of everything I hated. You were a pincushion into which I stabbed all my anger at an unjust war. Those first few months we were stuck together you drove me mad with rage. To say  _ I _ met  _ you _ with patience? Nicolo, I have never met a man more patient than you. You have taken everything I’ve thrown at you in stride. Turned every bad thing I wanted you to be back on me, with humility and compassion. You are a good person, Nicolo,” Nicolo scoffs because he does not believe it. 

“You are,” Yusuf presses “You just met the wrong people. You have such a profound capacity for love. You own your mistakes and you learn from them. At first you were a gift because you were an outlet I did not yet know I needed. You are a gift now because you have helped me find a peace and happiness within myself I feared had been lost forever. I am driven mad by the thought of what you’d feel like in my arms, I am dizzy at the thought of your body painted by moonlight.” Yusuf squeezes Nicolo’s hand, gazes deeply into his eyes. “I want you, Nicolo. Every day I wake and do not hold you close to me feels like death, every night I do not spend drawing your freckles like stars in the night sky cuts me to the core. I see Allah in the angle of your jaw, the curve of your lip, the shape of your shoulder. I want you, Nicolo, so much my heart threatens to tear itself from my chest to join with yours.” Yusuf ‘s hand slides upward, cupping Nicolo’s face. There are “You are meant for more than pain, your God is made of more than agony. I will not force you into anything you are not comfortable with, but know I am in misery every day you are not by my side, and I have suffered enough for one lifetime,” 

Nicolo pulls himself away from Yusuf’s grasp, and for a moment Yusuf feels himself falling, fearing that Nicolo is still too scared to try. But Nicolo merely stands, letting his fingers intertwine with Yusuf’s. He pulls Yusuf to his feet and their mouths collide, quick and curious, seeking answers. They find Paradise on each other’s lips, passion igniting in their chests, and they find themselves starving for more. Yusuf clutches the soft fabric of Nicolo’s shirt, crumples it in his fist, and guides him toward the door. They catch each other’s smiles and stumble through the doorway, into the privacy of their own home. 

  
Nicolo’s hands go Yusuf’s waist line, teases off his rain-soaked shirt, calloused fingers trace the curve of Yusuf’s back. A moan escapes Nicolo’s lips as Yusuf kisses down his throat. They stumble across the room, breathing each other in, desperate to feel one another warm against their skin. Every touch, every kiss is electric, sending shockwaves through their bodies, pumping excitement through their veins. Nicolo lifts Yusuf from the floor, dizzy with the pressure of Yusuf’s legs around his hips. Yusuf hums happily to himself when Nicolo runs his fingers through his hair. They pass hours like this, the drumming of the rain accompanies the prayers of worship they whisper into each other’s ear; and in the dark, with Yusuf’s arms wrapped lovingly around him, with Yusuf’s breath tickling his neck, Nicolo feels whole. For the first time in his life there are no doubts creeping in his head, there is no fear burning in the back of his throat. He is alive and he is happy. Nicolo smiles, places one final kiss to Yusuf’s bicep, and presses his back more firmly into Yusuf’s chest.  _ This is a gift _ , Nicolo thinks to himself and falls asleep to the sound of frogs singing in the summer rain. 

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoy! Feel free to drop a comment here or find me @fatal-vision.tumblr.com


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